As Cal Baptist cancels, focus is now on the Stanford Cardinal

With Arizona Basketball having their tune-up game against Cal Baptist being canceled, now their focus turns Pac-12 foe, Stanford Cardinal.

Were only five games (out of a possible eight) into the 2020-21 Arizona Basketball season, and already the Wildcats will have to focus on their first Pac-12 conference game.

The Cats head to Northern California this weekend to play in their first road game of the season against the Stanford Cardinal on Saturday, December 19 at 6:00 pm MST. The game will be televised on the Pac-12 network.

Arizona Wildcats

Already heading into this one, there had to be a little bit of logistical work done to make it happen, as the game has been moved to Santa Cruz, California, one hour away from Stanford’s campus.

The Wildcats will enter Saturday’s game 5-0, fresh off of a home win against UTEP, 69-61.

Last weekend, it was a bit of a sloppy effort, as the Wildcats scored just 11 points off of 18 offensive rebounds and had 16 turnovers, those are areas that will need to improve before the Wildcats take on Stanford in Santa Cruz on Saturday.

Having one less game to prepare, the Wildcats Cats will look to junior guards Jemarl Baker and James Akinjo to get hot behind the arc and continue the teams’ solid free-throw shooting and hopefully have a cleaner performance.

Arizona converted 89 percent of their free throws last weekend, and it was certainly a major part of their win over UTEP, if Arizona can stay aggressive and get to the line and convert like they did last weekend, and I like their chances.

I expect Sean Miller to continue to play and rotate nine different players, perhaps still trying to settle his rotation.

Following their win over UTEP, here is what Miller had to say about his team heading into Conference play.

"“What I like the most about our team is who our team is every day if this were normal times I would credit our team as a very well-practiced group, show up every day eager to learn, listen,” he said. “Some practices are better than others but the effort level, concentration, and the intent of our group is really unquestioned at this point”."

Stanford comes into the game 3-2, and this will be the first conference game for both teams.

A few Cardinal players to watch for are 6-foot-9 inch senior forward Oscar da Silva, who leads their team in scoring with 20.2 points per game, followed by Daejon Davis, a 6-foot-3 inch senior guard averaging 14.5 points per game.

Head coach Jerod Haase was a former stand-out player at Kansas and enters his fifth season with the Cardinal. This year he has a talented group that could be a dark horse pick to contend for a Pac-12 title.

Hopefully, the Wildcats can come away victorious in this one, this will be their toughest test yet for 2020-21. As always, Bear Down, Arizona!